Q&A: City Wide Maintenance covers it all

Franchise owner finds cleaning industry not just in demand, but largely recession-proof

When the carpets need cleaning, the landscaping needs attention, or the parking lot needs striping, owners of some 150 local office buildings call on City Wide Maintenance of Houston to do the job.

As owner of the local management company franchise, Jim Clayton sees to it that a laundry list of some 25 services are handled for clients.

After being downsized from two jobs 25 years ago, Clayton sought a career in the growing cleaning industry, which he viewed as recession-proof. He contracts with 30 companies to coordinate services for commercial property owners, such as janitorial, window washing, pest control, painting, electrical, plumbing and lawn care. City Wide Maintenance of Houston is one of 40 franchises in 24 states.

Clayton spoke with the Chronicle recently about his job. Edited excerpts follow.

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

A: We're basically a management company that handles our customers' facility maintenance services so they can focus on their real jobs. There's someone in their organization who handles facilities maintenance on top of their real job. They really don't want to spend a lot of time doing that. We make their job easier by saving them time.

Q: Who are your customers?

A: Typically, they are buildings that are going to be 20,000 square feet. They are single-tenant, owner-occupied buildings.

Q: How much do companies spend on maintenance of a building of that size a year?

A: There's a huge range. It varies with each individual building and exactly what they want included.

Q: What kind of staff does it take to maintain such a building?

A: Typically it's two people on a nightly basis that do the general cleaning. I have area managers that handle the customer relations to make sure they're happy.

Q: What's the most common request?

A: They want their carpets shampooed.

Q: How has your business changed with the fortunes of the economy?

A: Actually, our business is kind of recession-proof. Buildings need to be cleaned. Back in 2008 when a lot of businesses were suffering, we continued to stay stable. I've seen good positive growth year after year after year. In 2008, we had 3 percent growth.

Q: Where do you find contractors to do the work?

A: It's mostly referral. A lot of people will be a contractor of ours, and they'll tell others about us. I'll run a Craigslist ad, and I'll interview them. We do criminal background checks, all that kind of stuff.

Q: What's one aspect of building maintenance that would surprise people?

A: That the most important thing to maintain a building properly is to keep the soil and so forth from entering the building to begin with. They talk about removing dirt instead of keeping dirt out of the building.

Q: How do you prevent that?

A: Everyone knows the term green cleaning. The big part of green cleaning is preventing the necessity to clean. You do that by capturing dirt before it gets into the building with walk-off mats or airlocks that keep dirt and everything from getting into the main part of the building and getting into the air conditioning system.

Q: How does an air lock work?

A: An air lock will have a negative air flow. It's two doors. A Dillard's, or a store like that, for example. You're going to open a door, then you go another 10 feet and then open another door. That's an air lock.

Q: Do customers demand more green cleaning?

A: We encourage them to do that. Using chemicals that are sustainable and using processes and chemicals and equipment that will actually remove more dirt in less time, and do it in a sustainable way. Such as microfiber cleaning cloths that will capture more dirt, vacuum systems with micron filtration where it's actually going to trap the soil instead of circulating it into the air. The less you have to deal with in terms of chemicals or labor to remove the dirt from the building, the more sustainable it is. The faster you clean, the less electricity you use. We've developed a means of removing more dirt in less time with less chemicals. The process of doing that offsets additional costs.

Q: What are the top services that customers ask for?

A: All forms of janitorial services. That's about 70 to 75 percent of the services we provide.

Q: What's the most unusual maintenance request you've gotten?

A: I can't think of one. I've been doing this for 25 years. I've probably had things asked of me over and over again and they are no longer unusual.